The Australian Nursery’s Fruit Improvement Company (ANFIC) got Australia back in the game when it came to intellectual property rights and the ability of the industry to play on something even close to a level playing field.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, increasing frustration shared by deciduous fruit tree nurseries saw the local players get together to found ANFIC.

And they, and Australia, have never looked back.

New varieties considered number one in the world at the time, weren’t being introduced into Australia until after the patents had expired overseas.

Departments of agriculture could only introduce new varieties on a test basis and could not release varieties until the patent had expired.

Australia was 20 years behind.

Breeders and owners of new plant varieties had very little legislation within Australia to secure their intellectual property rights and this was further causing Australia to fall behind, when it came to new innovative fruit varieties.

It seemed clear to a group of innovative nursery owners the development of an organisation with a keen interest in gaining licenses with overseas owners and breeders to import, test, produce, and market fruit varieties, otherwise unavailable was of the utmost importance.

The founding members quickly worked on connecting ANFIC with various university and private breeding programs across America, Canada, England and France. The ANFIC member nurseries totalled 12 at the time and had diverse but complementary expertise.

The first overseas variety, and the one variety with great importance to the Australian apple industry was the Royal Gala.

The first distribution of scion wood to ANFIC member nurseries was made on April 1 in 1986; two years later, the first Royal Gala trees would be available to Australian growers, and the rest, as they say, was history for this significant apple variety.

Importance of IP management and commercialisation for tree crops

Thousands of varieties would be, and have been, imported by ANFIC since the Royal Gala, and encouragingly Australian growers and private breeders were coming forward with new finds for testing and possible licenced distribution.

Of the imported varieties which make it through the evaluation phase, fewer than 1 per cent move forward to commercialisation, thus bringing about compensation for the time and effort spent during the selection process by the breeder.

Tree crop breeding can take 15-20 years, sometimes upwards of 30 years. Breeders spend a painstaking amount of time evaluating hundreds of thousands of seedlings, all to find the advanced selections producing the eventual one per center – because better fruit, tree anchorage, size, and disease resistance, amongst many other factors, have to align for the purpose of the breeding program and the end result of new varieties producing high quality fruit for the consumer.

Unfortunately, much of the time spent on such projects can be unsuccessful if there is no possibility of a financial return, through no commercialisation opportunities.

Most new varieties which do make the evaluation phase require the combined forces of Intellectual Property (IP) management and thoughtful commercialisation to be successful.

Without variety protection and royalties, there is no meaningful opportunities for commercialisation, neither for grower nor breeder.

Variety protection enables exclusivity and management to avoid oversupply; growers can access these exclusive varieties to open a new market for their operations, to minimise production costs – for example, by utilising disease resistant rootstocks, or to boost their income with improved varieties.

Royalties work in tandem with this and provide funds for ongoing research and development and breeding programs that don’t receive public funding.

ANFIC has always recognised the Australian grower’s perspective when it comes to royalties: fruit production royalties should also be supported by an increase in the market price received, increased yields (reducing costs per hectare), better quality fruit (e.g. disease resistance), or through some form of marketing/advertising budget to complement the new fruit variety. 

Management of the total area planted to the one variety, may also maintain the price received by growers through management of oversupply. 

Some, or all, of these options in most growers’ situations will justify a fruit production royalty.  It is only where a fruit production royalty is requested and no benefits are evident to the grower, that the viability of a new fruit variety will be short lived.

ANFIC’s contributions over 40 years

It’s difficult to quantify ANFIC’s contributions to the Australian tree crop industry.

Successful international connections via the Associated International Group of Nurseries also allow for collaborative variety evaluation of imported varieties as well as opportunities for Australian bred fruit to be commercialised internationally.

ANFIC manages licenses for apples, apricots, avocados, blueberries, cherries, custard apples, citrus, nectarines, peaches, pears, persimmons, plums, raspberries, table grapes, walnuts and a range of stone, pome and tropical fruit rootstocks.

ANFIC’s current member nurseries include Balhannah Nurseries, Cherryhill Nurseries, Hansen Orchards, JFT Nurseries, A&C Routley, Narromine Transplants, Olea Nurseries, Sattva Nursery, Tahune Fields Horticulture, and Mount View Orchards.

There are more than 60 ANFIC sub-licenced nurseries around Australia, with a wide range of exclusive varieties.

ANFIC looks forward to celebrating its 40 years of service to the Australian fruit industry, and to finding and supporting the next 1 per cent of new fruit varieties with exciting eating experiences for consumers.

Further details at www.anfic.com.au

ANFIC legacy GOODMAN IMAGE

ANFIC might be celebrating 40 years, but the Australian fruit tree industry has been part of the rural landscape since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. This historical image from Chas J Goodman stretches back to the 1930s in eastern Victoria.